The Dish

Here’s a classic:

Militants ship a nuclear bomb into a U.S. port and ravage an entire city. More than the plot of a Tom Clancy thriller, it is the ultimate nightmare for many U.S. officials, ports and businesses.

So even if the, er, “militants” detonate a nuke against civilians, they’re still not “terrorists.” What do they have to do to get some respect around here?

BUSH = LENIN: A new wrinkle on the Hitler paradigm.

A SILENT GENOCIDE: Noam Chomsky tries to deny he once predicted humanitarian catastrophe if the U.S. pursued the war in Afghanistan. Damian Penny doesn’t let Chomsky get away with it. Meanwhile, in the Hindsight Check watch, it’s worth checking out the U.N.’s predictions about the Iraq war, back in December 2002. Among the confident statements:

“It is estimated that the nutritional status of some 3.03m people countrywide will be dire and that they will require therapeutic feeding [according to UNICEF estimates]. This consists of 2.03m severely and moderately malnourished children under 5 and one million pregnant women” [para 27]
“It is estimated that there will eventually be some 900,000 Iraqi refugees requiring assistance, of which 100,000 will be in need of immediate assistance, [according to UNHCR]” [para 35]. An estimated 2 million people will require some assistance with shelter [para 33]. For 130,000 existing refugees in Iraq “it is probable that UNHCR will initially be unable to provide the support required” [para 36]

It’s worth remembering that, for all the problems we have now in Iraq, they are minuscule compared to the problems many anti-war groups predicted.

Fascinating interview in the Telegraph with an Iraqi colonel who claims he was the3 source for the intelligence that Saddam’s army had a WMD capacity that could be launched against invading forces within 45 minutes. More interesting: he stands by his story. Money quote:

The only reason that these weapons were not used, said Col al-Dabbagh, was because the bulk of the Iraqi army did not want to fight for Saddam. “The West should thank God that the Iraqi army decided not to fight,” he said.
“If the army had fought for Saddam Hussein and used these weapons there would have been terrible consequences.”
Col al-Dabbagh, who was recalled to Baghdad to work at Iraq’s air defence headquarters during the war itself, believes that the WMD have been hidden at secret locations by the Fedayeen and are still in Iraq. “Only when Saddam is caught will people talk about these weapons,” he said.

I wonder what the next few months will ultimately reveal.

OKRENT’S GREAT START: What a refreshingly candid piece from the NYT’s new ombudsman (no, my first piece of ornery dissent will be refusing to call the guy what the Times wants me to call him). I liked his description of his politics:

I’m an absolutist on free trade and free speech, and a supporter of gay rights and abortion rights who thinks that the late Cardinal John O’Connor was a great man. I believe it’s unbecoming for the well off to whine about high taxes, and inconsistent for those who advocate human rights to oppose all American military action. I’d rather spend my weekends exterminating rats in the tunnels below Penn Station than read a book by either Bill O’Reilly or Michael Moore. I go to a lot of concerts. I hardly ever go to the movies. I’ve hated the Yankees since I was 6.

Sounds like many readers of this site. Let’s see if he is as unsparing in his assessments as you are. (Some are already impressed.)

The strange turn-around in the matter of same-sex marriage. The issue that once divided Democrats is now dividing Republicans. My take on how Bush can keep his coalition together.

THE ISLAMIST-LEFT ALLIANCE: More troubling signs that some nutters on the far left are toying with sharia. Meanwhile, some strains in the alliance show up in Australia. I love this sane Muslim’s response:

“I couldn’t believe it. I was sitting there with my son and he comes out with comments as if the Koran says it’s OK to attack homosexuals,” Mr Demiri said. “He told us they should have their heads chopped off. My son asked me if what the Imam said was true and I said ‘No, it’s not’. Then, he wanted to know if the Imam was lying and I couldn’t give him an answer that would make any sense. We go there to pray, not to listen to that kind of rubbish. There were a lot of intelligent people there who were offended by it. He (Imam Idrizi) needs to be taken to task for it, because it gives Muslims a bad name.”

Er, yes, it does.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “I feel like a lone voice in the wilderness. But there is a large, seething majority out there against what Bush is doing to this country. This administration is as fundamentalist as the Islamics”. – Graydon Carter, editor with the important hair, at Vanity Fair. The “Islamics”? Who exactly is he talking about? Or is this a relevant question? (Hat tip: Belgravia Despatch.

It “scarcely exists.” And no mention of anti-Semitism anywhere else in the world, of course. Of course, Chomsky has to deny it. Or else he would have to answer for consorting with those who practice it.

“Since Operation Iron Hammer, we have seen a drop-off in attacks against us, and we continue to see a decrease in crime (especially as we put more Iraqi Police and ICDC [Iraqi Civil Defense Corps] on the streets). We are seeing [an] upswing in the perception of U.S. forces’ action in the Arab media . . . and a significant increase in tips from the locals of Baghdad, and an extremely significant increase in the turn-in of unlawful weapons…
All these things may be due to the enemy lying low to see what we’re doing; it might be due to us having significantly hurt the enemy during the operations; it could be that the thugs and criminals being paid to conduct the attacks are not up for fighting anymore. And, it might also mean that the average citizen of Baghdad is getting sick of fighting, and that same average citizen is better supporting the coalition (which we believe, from our data). Or, it might mean the enemy is gearing up for another offensive.” – Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling, assistant commander, 1st Armored Division. Encouraging, no?

PROHIBITION RETURNS? Seventy years after prohibition was repealed, there are some in Britain who’d like to bring it back. Against tobacco, that is.

BUCKETHEAD EMAILS OF THE DAY: “I saw your Poseur Alert post regarding Viggo Mortensen musical work with a guitarist named Buckethead. I’ve met Buckethead before and the guy is most certainly not Japanese, though he does have many CD releases available in Japan. I believe Buckethead picked up his guitar chops from instruction provided by Joe Satriani. I think the author is the Poseur for not getting this simple information straight regarding Buckethead’s origins.”

“I have seen Buckethead perform and he is a SCREAM. I saw him down at the 9:30 Club back in 1999. He opened for Primus.
He is about 6′ 4″, wears a yellow raincoat that is too small for him, a porcelain mask, a weird-al yankovic wig and a KFC chicken bucket on his head … yeah he looks like a freak but the man can play some serious guitar. He ranges from weird techno instruments to soft acoustic pieces.
During his performance, he would play to a backing track (no band), stop in mid song and “robot dance”, then pull out Nun-Chucks and put on a martial arts display … then return to playing a song … The funniest thing I had ever seen onstage … During Primus’ set, he came out and did some more robot dancing and martial arts … the guy is a riot!” Do the readers of this site know everything?

HINDSIGHT CHECK: Amid all the gloom-mongering about Iraq, here’s a reminder of what an anti-war group of scentists, public health officials and peace activists predicted in November 2002:

Credible estimates of the total possible deaths on all sides during the conflict and the following three months range from 48,000 to over 260,000. Civil war within Iraq could add another 20,000 deaths. Additional later deaths from post-war adverse health effects could reach 200,000. If nuclear weapons were used the death toll could reach 3,900,000. In all scenarios the majority of casualties will be civilians.
The aftermath of a ‘conventional’ war could include civil war, famine and epidemics, millions of refugees and displaced people, catastrophic effects on children’s health and development, economic collapse including failure of agriculture and manufacturing, and a requirement for long-term peacekeeping.

Notice how the peace activists assumed the possibility that Iraq had active nuclear weapons. But what they were right about, to some extent, was the financial cost. The good news is that that money is being spent to advance Iraqi society, not just to rebuild it.

“No one should find the need to take his marbles and go home just because of one issue (gay marriage). As one who has fought the dragons of leftist public policies for several years, I can attest to the old adage that ‘there is strength in numbers.’ The political left in our nation succeeds because they remain united around a core conviction – big government, while conservatives and libertarians splinter in the pursuit of ideological purity on every issue. This is insanity. Anyone who would question the dedication to conservative principles of David Horowitz and George Will, for example, because they offer a different perspective on the issue of gays, is out of his friggin’ mind. And, I can’t put it more eloquently than that. Please, please, please at this moment of national crisis on so many issues, let’s not fracture our conservative/libertarian family over one issue.” – Ward Connerly, president, American Civil Rights Institute, tireless campaigner against affirmative action.

A blog asks some tough questions of the anti-war activist.

“I enjoyed the item on Viggo Mortensen, who is a terrific actor. But I wonder if it ever occurs to many of these Hollywood types that there is a certain irony (if not hypocrisy) in the sheer number of them who take on roles that stress the need to fight for things like honor, loyalty, freedom and country, and their public stance that all war is evil, and the Iraq war in particular – a war that is being fought to help an oppressed citizenry take back their country from an evil and brutal dictator – is wrong and unnecessary.
In just the past few months, we’ve had Mortensen once again playing the fearless warrior Aragorn in “Lord of the Rings,” Tom Cruise as a Civil War soldier who finds himself drawn to the warrior ways of the samurai in “The Last Samurai,” Russell Crowe as a brave and charismatic ship’s captain in “Master and Commander” and even Tommy Lee Jones as an avenging grandfather who battles renegade Indians in order to save his kidnapped granddaughter. You have to wonder if actors, as they’re playing these characters, ever stop to think about the implications of the stories they’re helping to tell. Do they ever question their “war is always bad, violence is never the answer” ideology? Do they perhaps stop to think that, as these movies vividly demonstrate, evil does exist in the world and sometimes the only way to combat it is for good and honorable men (and women) to use violence to overcome it?” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

“Bush, Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden, they are all terrorists,” – historian Howard Zinn, at Harvard.